Page 47 of A Scandal in Homeroom
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking up at me as I stood there frozen. “I’m sorry. I just…the way you said the word. Like it’s a commodity.”
Because it was for my mother. Because in some ways, how I played off my looks, it was for me, too.
I did what I did so I could have power over it. Control it. On my terms. Only right now, I didn’t feel in control of anything.
“If the coach asks, I had to go to the bathroom,” I finally said.
“Are we still speaking?”
He looked concerned that we might not be. He didn’t understand, I didn’t have a choice. I had to stay close to him so I knew what he was up to at all times.
“Yes.”
He nodded and I left the noise of the gym behind while I headed off to the girls’ locker room to stew.
* * *
Later that Day
Cafeteria
“Guys are jerks!”Beth announced, as she sat down in her usual spot.
Janie and I were already there. I was picking at a salad, trying not to think about Locke or anything he’d said, while Janie was eating a peanut butter sandwich.
She only ever ate peanut butter. Because that’s what Mrs. Fairfax, a widow who lived off her husband’s social security checks and the state money she took to look after Janie, could afford. Not even a damn jar of jelly.
I should buy her a jar of jelly. I had plenty of money now. I could buy my best friend a jar of jelly so she wouldn’t always have to eat a plain peanut butter sandwich for lunch.
I should do that, and I should tell Beth her father was back in town because it was almost certain by now that if he was at home with her, she would have said something. Why hide it from us?
I should do both those things. But then Janie would ask whereIgot the money for jelly and Beth would ask where I had seen her father.
Instead, I asked, “Why are guys jerks?”
“Because one minute you think he’s into you and then the next minute he’s not speaking to you. Like at all.”
Janie put down her sandwich. “Are you talking about Fitz?”
“Of course I’m talking about Fitz” Beth hissed. “He’s a jerk.”
“But you just went out last week,” Janie said, stating the obvious. “I thought you guys were together.”
“Yeah, well, two, count them, one, two, unanswered texts and a total brush off in the hallway say we’re not.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Right. Because guys are jerks,” Beth repeated. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it. He’s done with me. I’m done with him. What’s next?”
“But did something happen? Between the party and now?”
I couldn’t say I knew Fitz well, but I knew him well enough to know he wasn’t flighty. Janie and I had both had the conversation that if Fitz was making the move to take Beth to Chas’s party, then it meant he was staking a claim.
Fitz Darcy didn’t stake a claim unless he meant it.
“No,” Beth shrieked. “Nothing. We texted Sunday night. Everything was cool, and then nothing.”
I tried to put together the pieces. Something happened between the party and Monday because there had been a reason Locke wanted me to go to his house. Some new piece of information that made him think I knew something more than I did.
